LaGuardia plane crash: Runway reopens after mangled aircraft, truck removed

A flight attendant still strapped in her seat survived being thrown from an Air Canada plane that collided with a fire truck at New York's LaGuardia Airport, her daughter said Monday.

It's a "total miracle," Sarah Lepine told Canadian news station TVA Nouvelles.

She said her mother, Solange Tremblay, had multiple fractures to one leg and will need surgery but otherwise was OK. An aviation safety expert said she likely was helped by being in a seat with a four-point restraint used by crew members.

"I'm still trying to understand how all this happened," Lepine said, "but she definitely has a guardian angel watching over her."

The jet, carrying more than 70 passengers, was landing when it collided with a fire truck that was responding to a problem at another plane Sunday night. The nose of the Air Canada plane was destroyed, and the pilot and copilot were killed.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, too, called Tremblay's survival a miracle when "compared to the destruction of the nose of the airplane."

"The flight attendant's seat is kind of a jump seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, the same wall that the cockpit utilizes," said Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator.

"It's a very robust seat," he added. "It's designed to withstand probably more crash loads than passenger seats because you need the flight attendant to help passengers get out of an airplane after a crash."

In 2013, at least two flight attendants were injured when they were thrown from an Asiana Airlines flight that crashed into a sea wall while landing at San Francisco International Airport. There were 291 people aboard Asiana Flight 214, and three girls were killed.

The injured Port Authority officers involved in the crash were identified Monday as Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez.

Baez was released on Monday and Orsillo will spend the night in the hospital.

"This could have been an even broader tragedy if everyone had not responded as quickly and effectively as they did," said Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia.

The last accident with a fatality was 34 years to the date of Sunday night's crash

"Yes it was an aviation disaster the likes of which we have not seen here in three decades," said Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The pilots who died in the crash were "young men at the start of their careers," Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said Monday afternoon.

"I want to extend my sympathies for the families of the two pilots," he said. "These were two young men at the start of their career, so it's an absolute tragedy that we're sitting here with their loss."

Bedford said there was four-mile visibility the night of the crash, which is more than enough for a visual approach.

The last accident with a fatality was 34 years to the date of Sunday night's crash.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford joined Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani to give an update on the deadly crash at LaGuardia on Monday afternoon.

Runway 4 at LaGuardia Airport will remain closed until 7 a.m. Friday after the collision between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck, according to a public notice from the FAA.

N.J. Burkett has the latest on the NTSB investigation.

LaGuardia Airport has 33 of the target goal of 37 air traffic controllers, Duffy said, and seven more in training.

"So as our airports go, LaGuardia is a very well-staffed airport, we are a couple controllers short in total, but it a well-staffed airport, 33 certified controllers that operate out of the tower here at LaGuardia," Duffy said.

He declined to reveal the staffing in the control tower Sunday night, but said a "rumor that there was one controller in the tower was not accurate."

"It's troubling we had an aircraft hit a fire truck, that's troubling, full stop," he said.